New ice formations on the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres were sealed by the Dawn spacecraft, which is slowly approaching its ultimate goal in the asteroid belt.
An autonomous ionic spacecraft, which is currently at a distance of less than 90,000 miles (145,000 kilometers) from its final goal, should go into a stable orbit in mid-March.
Despite the fact that Ceres is located in the inner part of the solar system, very little was known about this dwarf planet until the moment when Dawn's camera began to photograph it. Prior to these photographs, Ceres could be seen as a small blurred spot through the optics of the Hubble Space Telescope. But the last series of observations shows that Ceres has a diverse surface, which, apparently, is covered with craters. For example, in the southern polar region of the dwarf planet there is a large circular crater.
The mysterious bright formation that fascinated scientists slowly begins to reveal some details. Moreover, it seems that it has several smaller bright formations that may be signs of ice deposits.
This is the clearest image of Ceres today, where each pixel spans 8, 5 miles (14 kilometers) across.
